Greek Oxi-moron: When Bailout Means Servitude

Patrick L Young is CEO of niche crowdfunding platform HanzaTrade and an advisor to fund managers throughout the world. Born in Ireland, he is an active investor in the “New Europe” amongst other emerging markets and is an active Co Founder of grassroots startup group "Mission ToRun."
Home Page: http://patricklyoung.net Twitter: @FrontierFinance

Greece has capitulated, overrun by a Troika whose ‘political vision’ is dominated by Euro-delusion. Hellenic democracy has been reduced to an abstract concept.

The Greek people voted resoundingly “No” to a previously proposed
austerity package, yet one week later, Prime Minister Alexis
Tsipras has not merely capitulated, he left Brussels with a
markedly worse deal for Greece on every level. The proposal is
simply a confirmation that the EU demands Greek subjugation for
having the temerity to challenge Euro-orthodoxy. And no, Greece
can’t afford this loan either, for the simple reason it’s
bankrupt.

The Troika has punished the Greeks for their temerity to seek a
better future, perhaps beyond the flawed (and still fatally ill)
political currency project. Other eurozone members were
frustrated. They have lost trust in a Greek government who
postured with aplomb as Athens burnt but ultimately have proven
as incapable as the ‘establishment’ they were elected to rout.
Then again, as I have said for years, heaping two incoherent
bailouts on a nation’s citizenry which were designed to save the
bankers and the euro was in and of itself rather an act of bad
faith too...

EuroSummit has unanimously reached agreement. All ready to go
for ESM programme for #Greece with
serious reforms & financial support

We probably ought to have realized Greece would be crushed once
the EU haughtily suggested it was respecting their referendum
vote. This ‘agreement’ (in reality a totally one-sided
capitulation) actually resolves nothing.

One vague sop to Greece involves a possible longer grace period
with debt maturities extended. Thus the debt Greece already
cannot afford to repay will be heaped alongside yet more
(unaffordable) debt, but with more time to repay an already
unmanageable burden.
<http://rt.com/op-edge/greece-bailout-coma-political-experiment-046/>Sisyphean
is hardly the word! The patient is given more aspirin when what
ails him is acute appendicitis.

The political message is clear: The undemocratic EU Empire is the
most vindictive of bedfellows. Tsipras has been crushed like a
starling beneath the tracks of a tank. Regardless of the Greek
electorate, Greece is now ruled by Brussels. Tsipras, a lively
young fellow, will return to Athens with a deal which redefines
Pyrrhic. Greece is bust already; this deal only enshrines a path
to Euro-serfdom.

(Then again the Greeks’ irrational belief they could have their
‘Eurocake’ and eat without austerity has always been a remarkably
contradictory position to behold - roughly as plausible as
gigantic snowballs spending a happy eternity in Hades).

True, there will not be a Luxembourg-based protectorate of Greek
property. Instead, €50 billion of Greek assets will be held in
Athens awaiting privatization. The Greeks, having noisily
resisted all government control are now mere lapdogs of a
resurgent and vindictive Troika. Syriza’s zero privatization
promise has reversed into gift wrapping assets ready for sale
(That Syriza’s incompetence has only further tarnished said
assets’ values is merely a side topic in this fiasco - from every
angle this ‘agreement’ amounts to a ‘lose-lose’ scenario for all
Europeans).

As well as preparing this privatization package, Mr. Tsipras
apparently returns to Athens with a list of bills to pass through
Parliament by Wednesday. In other words, remedial homework for
recalcitrant schoolboys as opposed to the serious workload of a
national diet (Message from teacher Madam Troika: “After your
juvenile act of independence last week, class, it’s detention
until you write out the school rules”). There will now be motions
promising to pay, agreeing to Troika subjugation and holding
Greece to avoid further Mediterranean chicanery. This is now the
order of the day. Once passed, the Germans will deign to consider
formulating an actual deal.

If the Greeks have any wit whatsoever they will recognize this
fetid proposal for what it is - a brutal crushing of national
sovereignty at the altar of a twisted, incompetent, bloated
empire of sycophants promulgating a flawed (and fading) European
Empire. It strikes me pushing citizens towards cross border
antipathy happens to run somewhat contrary to the EU’s founding
principles. However, in the unedifying race towards ‘more Europe’
Brussels retains a hideous disregard for the actual citizens
living beyond the Berlaymont blob.

Thus, there may be a deal afoot but there is no solution.

#Eurocrisis lives on, swaddled in yet more duct tape. Given the
uncompromising death of Greek democracy, it is hard to imagine
how bewildered Greek citizens must feel. Presumably they are now
realizing there is no third way. The binary choice amounts to
enduring poverty within the eurozone or seeking a halt to their
economic castration; escaping the euro noose and seeking a brave
new world beyond the Troika’s deadly embrace.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.